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A review has reiterated that oral contraception is safe and effective for adolescent females, and found that negative side effects are rarer among teens than adult users. The review also found no evidence linking the use of oral contraceptives to increased or riskier sex:
Nearly five years ago, the nation's leading group of obstetricians and gynecologists issued a policy statement saying the time had come for oral contraception to be available without a prescription. We wrote about it and everything.
In the intervening years, some states have changed their laws. California authorized pharmacists to distribute most types of hormonal birth control. Oregon passed a similar law covering both pills and patches. But neither law changed the status of birth control pills from prescription to over-the-counter. Only the Food and Drug Administration can do that. And in Oregon's case, the law does not apply to people of all ages. People under 18 are still required to get their first contraceptive prescription from a doctor.
But researchers say there is no evidence that adolescents are at greater risk from birth control pills than adult women. A review of oral contraceptive research [DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.12.024] [DX] presents the most comprehensive evidence yet that, as the authors state, "There is no scientific rationale for limiting access to a future over-the-counter oral contraceptive product by age."
"There is a growing body of evidence that the safety risks are low and benefits are large," says Krishna Upadhya, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the lead author of the review, which was published this week in the Journal of Adolescent Health. In fact, she says, some of the potential negative side effects of oral contraception are less likely in younger people. For example, birth control pills that contain both estrogen and progestin come with an increased risk of a type of blood clot called a venous thromboembolism, but that risk is lower in teenagers than in older women. As a result, the pill is "potentially safer the younger you are," says Upadhya.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by VLM on Monday March 20 2017, @08:17PM (1 child)
There's at least three issues not being discussed so far
1) Some insurance plans are really annoyed about paying prescription prices for OTC equivalents. So some people are going to lose their "free" pills that everyone is paying for. I'm actually pretty chill with paying for some random chicks BC pills because its cheaper than paying her OBGYN and paying for her kid for the next 18 years. So more babies.
2) Most (all?) insurance plans will pay for OTC medication if a dr prescription specifies it, but this is fuzzy see above. So the fraction of women with medical insurance (which is rapidly dropping) might get all of us to pay for her OTC pills instead of prescription. Which doesn't really matter other than poor people without medical insurance will not get medical insurance they don't have pay for their pills and those are exactly the chicks we're most likely to end up paying OBGYN bills and 18 years of child care for her unwanted kid. So going OTC is going to hurt the people who are going to end up costing taxpayers the most possible money. Meanwhile its somehow justice that we all pay for some rich chick's pills because she is rich enough to have health insurance, which sounds stupid.
3) A little google work and apparently even today there are all kinds of pills that interact with contraception pills and the OTC people are most likely to F this up because it doesn't show on the pharmacy screen because its OTC, so again the poorest uninsured are now going to get stuck with taxpayers paying for their unwanted babies. Not to mention really dumb girls (also being the easiest) and thinking they only need to take one pill the day of or something.
Basically I see taxpayers paying for a lot more babies in the future, and the babies skewing dumb and poor. Basically the idea sucks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @04:01PM
Wow so you take the exact opposite view from what research suggests? Virtue signal harder for your masters please.